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Banned

Played the demo. Feels more like demons souls to me. But I really sucked at it. The core souls gameplay seems intact, the firearms are just an addition, not the main focus. You need to be a lot more agile and doge, roll around. The visuals. Aside from some minor framerate issues and aliasing(which could have been the tv), the game Is a looker. The animations, the physicsof the main characters cape, atmosphere... Amazing.

Ich It wasn't rock solid 30 frames, but it was alpha code. Some stutter here and there, no major dips. The guns seem to be mostly there for crowd control. You can stun or kill with it, but I had so few bullets, that it wasn't really worth wasting the gun on single enemies. Sorry about the grammar, posting from phone on floor.

I played Bloodborne at Sony last night. It feels completely, entirely, unapologetically like a Souls game. Like, yeah, there were more potions than you'd expect, and I felt like my survivability / damage were higher than normal, but the Sony employee on-hand assured me that the Gamescom demo was balanced to be easier than the final game.

But yeah, the sense of punishment is absolutely there, and these quotes should mean about as much to you as the talk last time around that oDark Souls 2 was going to be "much more accessible." This is such a Miyazaki game it's ridiculous. Based on my hour with it, there's absolutely no reason to panic.

This sampling of Bloodborne&#8217;s overall level design hints at a return to the appealing multipath layout of the first Dark Souls, an element that some sorely missed in the sequel. A gate locked on one side implies a future shortcut, provided you manage to open that barrier. One path can lead you down a route of a couple manageable hostiles while another could pit you against a monster equipped with torches. Based on my two playthroughs, From Software makes no assurances that the wide reach of an ax attack or the potency of a Molotov cocktail will have the same effectiveness one would find in other action-RPGs.

At the outset of the demo, I was given the option to choose a so-called &#8220;Heavy&#8221; fighter, equipped with an axe and pistol, or a &#8220;Standard&#8221; character, wielding a saw and blunderbuss. I went with the latter, expecting more of that ever-important speed I&#8217;ve been seeking for these last few years, and I certainly found it. I asked the game&#8217;s producers if my notions of Bloodborne&#8217;s amped-up quickness was simply a figment of my imagination; after all, some claim it&#8217;s no faster than Demon&#8217;s Souls or Dark Souls. They confirmed what I already knew: Bloodborne does indeed have speed From Software&#8217;s previous games lack, but it certainly doesn&#8217;t make the experience of playing any easier. It just makes it different.

The left-handed items now offer more usefulness during combat, and some of which can be used effectively in tandem with your melee attacks. The firearms play a large focus in combat, and while it may seem like they can make situations easy for players who want to stay at range, know that ammo is limited and scarce, which forces players to make smart use of their guns. If you have the blunderbuss equipped, you can bunch enemies together with your melee attacks and finish them off with a close-range shot. Pistols have greater range than the blunderbuss, but greatly lack the attack power.

Moreover, firearms can stun enemies and open up their defenses. Called the Counter-shot, when you shoot an enemy about to attack, you'll stun them and leave open to a devastating counter-attack. Think of this as Bloodborne's take on the parry, but it's way more brutal and satisfying to pull off.

I am God. Or not--but I certainly feel godlike when I slay the gigantic, hairy, rotting wolf boss of the Bloodborne hands-on demo. From Software's upcoming PS4 exclusive delivers the same kind of giddy thrills as the Souls series, with a few new twists and a spooky Victorian-era setting. But the delight of playing still comes from the same places. The suspense before each fight; the intensity of the combat; the desperate clinging to hope when things look dire; the euphoric relief that comes with finally downing your enemy. It's all here, and it's incredible.

From Software is aiming for a wider audience with Bloodborne, the next game based on the Souls concept, but is mindful there can be no compromise in regards of the series&#8217;s difficulty-demanding following.

&#8220;In terms of who the game is aimed at, and who we want to capture in terms of the audience, obviously we can&#8217;t betray or disappoint the fans out there,&#8221; said producer Masaaki Yamagiwa, speaking at gamescom today.

&#8220;They&#8217;re very, very important. They&#8217;ll be the main ambassadors of the game.&#8221;

But &#8220;we do want more people to share in this experience,&#8221; he admitted.

Like with Demon&#8217;s Souls, there&#8217;s a lot of emphasis on achievement and reward, that sense of accomplishment from overcoming seemingly impossible challenges. With Bloodborne, the goal is to take that to the next level, which requires focusing on more than just a high difficulty level. To really build up that sense of achievement, not only are there new elements of fear, but we are adding new layers of edge-of-your-seat tension, where your palms sweat as you grip the controller.
At E3 we introduced Bloodborne&#8217;s evolved combat style, which requires more pro-active and offensive tactics. The weapons, like the transforming saw cleaver and blunderbuss shotgun, lend themselves to this different combat style, as does the quicker movement and dodging. Enemies in Bloodborne are quicker and more aggressive as well, and you&#8217;ll be facing more enemies at once than in the past. There are situations where if you sit back and wait for an opening, you&#8217;ll get overwhelmed. At times, you have to be on the offensive. But this is not a hack-and-slash game. Rest assured, Bloodborne is still an action RPG at its core, and combat is still very much about strategy and tactics.

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Member

Feels more like demons souls to me. But I really sucked at it. The core souls gameplay seems intact, the firearms are just an addition, not the main focus. You need to be a lot more agile and doge, roll around. The visuals. Aside from some minor framerate issues and aliasing(which could have been the tv), the game Is a looker. The animations, the physicsof the main characters cape, atmosphere... Amazing.

Member

Well, first, it's 30FPS anyway. So that's already not good. If more games like TLOU:R or UC4 or many indies go 60FPS, console gamers will hopefully finally take notice of the differences. And second, FS/th dev has a notorious history of games with sub-30FPS framerates, including the past Souls games. Sure, the game is 6 months away, but they are showing a build with dips already again. There is a chance that they will fix it, but considering their past and their 30FPS decision, framerate is not of high priority for them. So there is hope, but it's little.

Banned

I'm curious how effective guns would be against bosses and if you have an inventory load like Demons Souls. My strategy in every game where I get a really good ranged weapon is to save it until I get to the big bad.

Banned

I'm curious how effective guns would be against bosses and if you have an inventory load like Demons Souls. My strategy in every game where I get a really good ranged weapon is to save it until I get to the big bad.

Right now it seems guns are for crowd control. Ammo is extremely scarce so should only be used in the worse of situations where a lot is at stake. I mean ammo may be so scarce that dying may seem better than wasting you're ammo on trash mobs.